Moving back to Dubai after 22 years has been an experience! Back then we didn't have the internet or blogs. Now we do I can jot down my thoughts on daily life, things we come up against, things we enjoy, the multi-national society, the laws, the weather...plus other things in general which catch my attention.

Sunday, January 14, 2007

Global Village - the good & the bad.

Went to Global Village on Saturday evening - started off at 4pm to get there before the worst of the traffic and it worked. Plenty of parking available at that time too.

It was well worth visiting I thought, plenty of interesting pavilions, ranging in size from large to huge, from a whole range of countries around the world.

India, the biggest busiest pavilion.

The standard of what's available inside varied enormously of course, but that's to be expected. There's the kitsch, the poor quality, the stylish, the good quality. But there are real bargains to be had on all sorts of items.

A 'parade of the puppets' was well done and there's a big variety of other entertainment. You can easily spend several hours there, so fortunately there are plenty of restaurants, take-aways, snack-food outlets.

A couple of interesting small displays were by Abu Dhabi and Dubai jails. The inmates are being trained to produce handicrafts and there are some beautiful examples on display and sale, especially wooden dhows and ornate wooden chests with hand-worked brass decoration. It's all to do with giving the prisoners a chance at a worthwhile job when they get out, so congratulations to all concerned.

But there's always a but.

Problems are needlessly created, as always, by the people in charge of roads and transport.

Inevitably it's them. Whatever you try to do in Dubai there are problems caused by that same group. We have some good places to go, good things to see and do, but the useless road planners spoil it just about every time.

There are two things that are endangering the entire vision for Dubai's future - inflation, with its disastrous effect on conducting a business in Dubai, and the people involved in our transport and road system.

Global Village throws up a couple of their disastrous contributions to chaos on our roads; their 'planning' and their complete lack of thought.

The tens of thousands of visitors driving to Global Village are given one entrance and one exit. Worse, to come out and go to 'New Dubai' you have to drive 10 km in the wrong direction before you can turn and drive the 10 km back to where you started, now facing in the right direction.

Brilliant!

After the chaos of jammed in & outs, cars that don't need to be there are made to fight the morons on Emirates Road, have to do an extra 20 km, adding to the congestion, just to cross the bloody road!

Even worse is signage adding to the confusion and the dangers.

I've posted about this before and the stupidity just gets worse. It's hardly rocket science is it, having directional signs and locating them in the right place!

The people responsible have either never driven themselves or they don't have a single brain cell amongst them. My money's on the latter.

Example. The huge new roundabout being completed near Arabian Ranches. Not one bloody sign to tell you which exit to take to get to Global Village. Not one.

If you happen to guess correctly you will find, about 500 metres along the road, a sign to Global Village. Confirmation that you guessed correctly, but that isn't the point is it. Of course the reverse works too - drive for a kilometre or so and not see a Global Village sign and the chances are you took the wrong exit.

Stupid, stupid, stupid!

Locate the bloody signs where they inform drivers where to go, not as a confirmation that they've guessed correctly!

There's the same problem with other signage, as there is all over Dubai.

A sign indicates the lane for Jebel Ali & Abu Dhabi. Take it and a little further on you come to a choice of two roads - but now the signs give you other destinations, there's no mention of Jebel Ali & Abu Dhabi. Again you have to guess, again there's a sign later on that tells you you happened to guess the correct road. Or if you don't see the sign, you guessed wrong.

Take the wrong road and it's anybody's guess where you'll end up, with all the dual-carriageways, flyovers, clover-leafs, underpasses. You can spend hours adding to the congestion by aimlessly driving around looking for a sign to get you on the right road.

About Me

We lived in Dubai from 1977 to 1984, visited on a couple of holidays, then moved back again in 2005. We came because we wanted to watch the incredible development as it happened and we moved back to Oz in 2011.
I now blog on Life in Oz and the link is on my last post here.
I welcome comments & debate on the blog, but insults are unnecessary and inappropriate. I will delete any which are libel, racist, obscene, advertising or which are simply to make a point but are completely off-subject. If you want to do that, create your own blog. Oh, and I've decided to add a new category to the delete list because there are too many of them left on blogs - stupid comments.
If you want to use my photos or quote from my posts you may do so - but only if you credit the source and give a link back to my original post.